Warning: Spoilers ahead.
“Love” is a show about, well love, but not in the way you would think. While yes, there is a male lead (played by Paul Rust) and a female lead (played by Gillian Jacobs) who through chance fall in love, there’s more to it. Being a Judd Apatow ("Superbad," "Pineapple Express") production, you know that there is going to be a good amount of humor, which there is throughout, but I wouldn’t consider it just a comedy. I like to think of it as an R-rated rom-com that doesn’t overexaggerate the trails and falls of the search for love. Instead, “Love” takes the age-old value and spins it in a very modern, realistic way, incorporating cultural traits that 30-year-olds are dealing with while on the search for someone to be with and incorporating humor around that. For instance, Mickey (Jacobs) complains at one point about how all of her friends are always posting pictures of their babies on Facebook, and she can’t relate. She and Gus (Rust) are in that time of their lives when most people decide to settle down and start a family, a commitment that Mickey is less interested in than Gus.
This situation makes for a unique take on the classic rom-com. Most, if not all, rom coms star a woman who is trying to find that special someone to spend their life with and a man who is rebellious and scared to show emotion. However, this show starts off by letting us know the traditional gender roles are switched: we are introduced to Gus as he is planning on moving in with his long-term girlfriend and to Mickey as she is hooking up with some loser guy again. Normally, one would expect to see Mickey in Gus’ situation and vice versa, but this show’s choice to flip the expected roles makes for not only an interesting story but also brings forward the theme of “love is unique and not confined by expectations.”
However as the show progresses, we follow Gus and Mickey’s character arcs and find how they seemingly want different things. At first, Mickey wants to just be friends with Gus, and that’s it. Of course, though, she starts to realize that Gus is a great guy and that maybe she should try dating a nice guy for a change. Gus, on the other hand, is immediately interested in Mickey and tries to win her affections off the bat, which he eventually does after a while. Then things start to turn.
After Mickey and Gus consummate their relationship, everything starts to change. Mickey, who normally wouldn’t care about not getting texted by the guy she just slept with, freaks out all day when Gus doesn’t contact her, and Gus goes to work and spends time with his friends like any other day. We learn throughout the episodes that Mickey is an addict, and now she has become addicted to Gus, the nice guy. Her addiction causes her to do “psycho” things, like trick her friend into going to where Gus works so she can see him because he hasn’t been texting her.
Gus, however, seems to have much less of an interest in Mickey after the consummation, leading me to believe this is a standard case of rebound gone wrong: Gus, thinking he was actually interested in Mickey, tries everything he can to have sex with her, and then, when he does, he moves on, while Mickey decides she wants to date Gus because he is new and different and probably good for her, pushing all of her addictive habits on to him. Obviously, this causes some serious issues between the two, but once they both come to terms with their problems, they seemingly decide to go for it anyway.
Now, this may not be the perfect love story or anything like that, but “Love” provides a realistic and unique look into the strange circumstances that you can find yourself in when confronted with this amazing and strange emotion we call "love."
